I find myself wanting to start every update with, "One of the most important parts of creating animation is..." this was one more of those times. But honestly the shadow work of characters is very important, especially when you have a show as dark as ours.

To get the shadows done properly this time, we asked Greg Capullo to shade one character at three different percentages of light value, 10%, 50% and 90% black. This way from the one character the colorists at Film Roman could use Greg's example to emulate and create something they knew I would approve fairly quickly.

This sped the process along nicely. Since giving them the Barabbas shadow test in the 10/50/90, they have come back with almost all of the characters shaded in a way and to a degree, which I approved of immediately.

For the most part I have let them take the lead in design and color but in this instance Terry and I both agreed having Greg help out would speed things up and buy us some extra time we needed for other aspects of the pre-production.

Below is a test of the Sam character shaded in the 10/50/90 difference, in a nighttime setting. The difference between the three is impressive and immediately recognized.